Note 67 — ITALY. (continued 7)

“Geography is a pleasant and easy study: the vivid representations it furnishes us of localities, often enable us clearly to understand an historical event; we often see, e.g., why a victory was not followed up, or how it might have been followed up. I do not like to set myself up as a pattern, but when I was a young man of your age, or even younger (I was scarcely seventeen years old), I read Strabo with the greatest attention. Whenever I had read a book, I endeavoured to reproduce it by writing down an abstract of it. It is not advisable to rely on books; and I therefore endeavoured to produce the substance in another form. Those who go through Strabo in this manner, even in their leisure hours, cannot fail to acquire a thorough knowledge of geography. Let those who have any taste for chorography read books of travel and similar works, as for example, Bory de St. Vincent, Tableau de la peninsule de l’Ibérie, or Alex. Laborde, Tableau de l’Espagne, which are especially valuable in assisting us to understand Livy’s account of the Spanish war. Strabo’s description of Spain is particularly excellent, but he is too often carried away by his learning and his desire to explain the Homeric poems; by reading his description you acquire an indelible and correct picture of Spain. A scholar must read the ancient authors systematically and repeatedly, sometimes with one particular object in view, and sometimes with another.”